HI,

I see that you are not mentioning anything on designing a PCB, then this should be simple. work on a veroboard, buy at least 3 uControllers, atleast 8 x LEDs, keypad, LCD, an Oscillator and obviously some knife to cut the conductors of the veroboard underneath your semiconductors.

If I were you my first attempt will be to make one LED to toggle. If i archieve that part, then i'll make use of all 8 LEDs and make them count-up. If I also archieve that then i'll connect the keypad and and make use of # and * or any two keys to select Count-Up or Count-Down operation on LEDs.

Then if that is archieved, I'll implement the whole keypad, the LEDs must show the binary equivalent of the key pressed, if archieve that, then i'll stop everything and play around with the LCD.

Trick with LCDs, if it is a Two line LCD it will show only one line when powered up, I have played around with One line but not that much, but I think when powered up, it only shows half of the line, not the entire line.

if you are planning on using Two line LCD, then my first attempt will be to configure it to two lines, till I see two lines instead of one line. or the whole line instead of half line when using one line LCD and configure it to show a blinking cursor.

Then you can have some fun with the LCD. once you get that working you resume where you left. implement the Keypad do simple things and submit your project.

If nothing is working, put your doubt on SW first before you can doubt your HW. I've learned that sometimes this IC they don't break easily, but they do break.